The invention relates to a toy building set as featured in the introductory part of claim 1.
Today, many varieties of toy building sets are known that have the distinguishing feature of containing a number of different toy building elements whereby it is possible to build various structures by interconnection of different toy building elements. Most prior art toy building sets comprise a number of building elements made of a relatively hard plastics material. Typically, the building elements are provided with coupling means, e.g. studs, on their top face and with coupling means on their bottom face that are complementary to the coupling means arranged on the top face.
There are plastics toy building sets wherein some elements have xe2x80x9corganicxe2x80x9d shapes, ie elements that deviate from a purely box-like shape. Such elements, however, are also made of a hard plastics material, and therefore they do not exhibit any flexibility.
Toy building sets are also known that comprise metal elements in the form of bars and sheets provided with holes, which elements can be assembled by means of bolts and nuts. In this toy building set there are also thin plastics sheets that are also provided with holes and which can therefore be joined with the metal elements by screwing. Depending on the mounting of the plastics sheets, they can be caused to assume organic shapes to allow structures of various appearances. It is a drawback of this building set that the plastics sheets are to be mounted by means of bolts and nuts which makes mounting very cumbersome.
Finally, a building system is known from DE 196 42 507 C1 that comprises building elements provided with grooves, and other building elements in the form of assembly lists that can be mounted and secured in the grooves. The assembly lists are made of a rigid material and have corrugated edges that impart a securing flexing effect thereto when said edges are mounted in the grooves. The assembly lists being made of a rigid material, they are unable to assume organic shapes.
Thus, there is a need for a toy building set comprising sheet elements that can be caused to assume various organic shapes and that can be mounted directly on toy building elements without use of particular assembly means.
This is obtained by configuring the toy building set described above with the features given in the characterising part of claim 1.
Hereby a toy building set is obtained whereby it is possible to construct organic structures, wherein the toy building sheet elements can be caused to assume an unlimited number of organic shapes depending on the way in which they are mounted in a toy building element featuring a groove or between a plurality of such toy building elements.
The thickness of the toy building sheet element slightly exceeding the width of the groove, and it being made of a soft material, the edge of the toy building sheet element can be pressed into the groove and frictionally secured therein, since the material presses on the inside of the groove.
If the toy building sheet element is arranged between two toy building elements provided with grooves, it can be caused to assume any organic shape between these toy building elements. When the toy building sheet elements are once again removed from the other toy building elements, it will resume its original planar configuration because it is made of an elastically deformable and formstable material.
Preferably the toy building sheet element is made of a foamed plastics material, e.g. polystyrene, which imparts a relatively high moment of inertia to the toy building element relative to its weight. This means that a relatively high degree of rigidity will be imparted to the toy building sheet element while, simultaneously, its softness is maintained.
In order to make the toy building sheet element more interesting, it may be configured with an organically shaped outer contour. Simultaneously the toy building element featuring a groove can be configured as an upwardly domed cylinder provided with two vertical grooves in two diametrical planes. If a toy building sheet element with an organically configured outer contour is arranged in such toy building element featuring grooves it is possible to imitate e.g. trees and bushes.
Preferably the grooves have decreasing width from the outer edge of the toy building element and inwards which allows the toy building sheet element to wedge itself securely in the groove.
According to a particularly preferred embodiment the coupling means of the toy building elements comprise cylindrical coupling studs and coupling means that are complementary therewith.